DNASTAR® announced the release of Lasergene 10.1 today as a Sanger and next-generation sequence assembly and analysis software upgrade with major enhancements to its desktop software suite for molecular biologists. Lasergene 10.1 continues DNASTAR’s track record of releasing software that features significant enhancements semi-annually. While there are many new features, functions, and enhanced workflows included in Lasergene 10.1, two improvements users will notice immediately are automated bacterial genome closure and epitope prediction.

The automated bacterial genome closure capability arose out of the vast experience DNASTAR has with software development, providing sequencing services, and working with bacterial samples. As Tom Schwei, the Vice President and General Manager of DNASTAR, stated, “In Lasergene 10.1, we have automated a workflow that we’ve had in place for many years for closing novel bacterial genomes. In several examples using both Illumina and Ion Torrent next-generation sequencing data, our new automated workflow resolves 80% - 90% of structural variations otherwise identified when trying to assemble data using a closely related genome.”

Also in the next-generation sequencing area, the Lasergene 10.1 release continued to build on the company’s clinical research software platform, with added capability to include phenotypic data in clinical trial genomic data analysis and additional statistics relevant to data from any size clinical trial. The proteomics component of Lasergene was also dramatically enhanced in Lasergene 10.1. Lasergene now includes epitope prediction based on a combination of bioinformatic methods applied to protein sequence data. Protean 3D, which integrates protein sequence, structure, and bioinformatic data in one analytical toolset, also now includes alignment of multiple protein structures and presentation of molecular surfaces.

Finally, the SeqNinja application that was introduced in Lasergene 10 as a powerful tool for quickly manipulating and modifying large or complex sets of genomic data or editing sequence data and annotations across large data sets, was enhanced in Lasergene 10.1 by the addition of a graphical user interface and pre-set templates for common functions.

Schwei commented, “We remain committed to bringing exceptional functionality to the market through a broad range of significant software improvements twice each year. Our customers have come to rely on this schedule and their feedback is that this is the right frequency to keep up with the fast pace of developments in the field.”